


Through Death and After

by Seascribe



Series: Through Death and After [1]
Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Related, F/M, Hospitalization, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 16:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene wakes up in the hospital after <i>Juliet is Bleeding</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Death and After

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Malnpudl for looking over it and brainstorming and to Muccamukk for getting my adjectives under control. Any remaining errors are my own!

"Close your eyes," Ray says, over and over, and he sounds so scared that Irene is sure this is it, she's going to die here in his arms. She doesn't listen, keeps her eyes open, looking out at the kaleidoscope blur of snow and streetlights. She can feel Ray's heart pounding like a jackhammer under her cheek. She never hears the ambulance sirens.

*

Irene wakes up, and feels a flicker of surprise at that. Her chest hurts-- _everything_ hurts--and there's a tube jammed down her throat, irritating and alien. She's confused and frightened and she wants her mother. But Mama's dead, she's been dead for eight years now. Irene remembers that, even though everything else is jumbled up and blurry. 

Someone is squeezing her hand gently.

"Irene? Can you hear me?"

It's Ray. He leans into her field of vision, peering anxiously down at her. He looks terrible, and she tries to tell him that, an inexplicable burble of laughter rising up in her throat. But the tube is in the way, and she makes an awful, gagging noise around it.

"Hey, no, you need that," Ray says, when she tries to reach up and pull it out. He tightens his fingers around her hand, and she squeezes back weakly. Her other hand has an IV in the back of it. 

"Do you remember what happened?" Ray asks her. Irene thinks about it, and memories start to coalesce out of the blur. She remembers Frank yelling and Ray, Ray was there too. She remembers the sound of gunshots, more yelling. Pain. She nods carefully.

"You were in surgery for about four hours," Ray tells her. "But you're gonna be fine. They said everything is gonna be fine." All at once his face crumples. "I'm so sorry, Irene. This is all my fault, I should've--" His voice cracks, and he looks away. 

Irene is glad she can't talk around the tube in her throat because this _is_ his fault, his and Frank's and the Mountie's, and right now, lying in this hospital bed surrounded by beeping monitors and blinking lights, with a bullet hole in her chest and a breathing tube down her throat, she hates all three of them. 

She lies there, staring blankly at the ceiling, and tries to pretend that she's the only person in the room, while Ray strokes her hand and repeats endless broken apologies.


End file.
